Prior to meeting Barao, MacDonald had never been defeated in the Zuffa-owned WEC and UFC and had lost just once in 16 pro fights. But when he fought the interim champ, he instantly felt something was wrong.

“This is no disrespect to Renan…I never had someone throw punches at me that I couldn’t see due to their certain technique,” he said. “This was the first time, because he had awkward body movement compared to traditional punching. I couldn’t see his punches coming, and I couldn’t counter.”

Ultimately, it wasn’t Barao’s punches that felled McDonald, but a slick submission game. In the fourth round, he secured an arm triangle and handed the 22-year-old fighter his first defeat in three years.

McDonald said his improvement doesn’t depend on his next opponent, but in this case, his previous one provided all the motivation he needed to do things differently.

He said he’s now corrected his deficiencies leading into the fight with Pickett, which airs live on the FOX Sports 1-broadcast preliminary card of the event at TD Garden in Boston.

“I believe it’s my responsibility as a professional athlete to correct all the things to the best of my ability before I take my next fight, and I feel that I’ve done that,” MacDonald said. “My mindset has always been about how far I can break my body down. It’s always been about how much I suffer. If I hurt, then that means I’m going to be going in there stronger. And my mindset has changed.

“I feel like I pushed my body to its limit in suffering, and I didn’t put enough time into recovering. Now, I put an equal amount time into recovery as my training. For the first time in my life, I’ve been able to gain muscle. I’m happy. I feel like I’m faster than I’ve ever been. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been.”

Not only that, but McDonald feels he’s more accurate with his punches than ever. Another measure he uses to gauge efficiency is how many significant punches he lands during sparring. In past camps, he said he considered a session won if he landed a potential knockout blow at least once every 90 seconds to two minutes.

In preparation for Pickett, he said those punches are coming every minute or less.

“I don’t know if Brad Pickett’s evasion and his head movement is going to be good enough to avoid my shots,” MacDonald said. “I don’t think he’s going to be able to take them on the chin like he takes a lot of people’s shots. I don’t think a lot of people in my division have the ability to touch you once and put you away, but I have that power.

“If I were Brad, I would be worried about not just taking those punches and avoiding them. I don’t know if his evasion is going to be better than my accuracy.”

Pickett is coming off a split-decision win over Mike Easton at UFC on FUEL TV 8, which followed a split-call loss to Eddie Wineland. The British fighter is known for his boxing-centric style and willingness to slug it out with opponents.

It could be McDonald’s chance to vault back into title contention, but he’s not in any hurry. With that said, he’s planning the steps he needs to take to fight and defeat bantamweights such as Urijah Faber, Dominick Cruz and Barao.

“Everybody at the top, I’m thinking about them when I’m training,” said McDonald.

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